New cross-city bus services

[Stu]

The principle behind some of these proposals seem sensible - linking major hospitals, places of work etc but some of the ones on that map seem downright strange, for example Harborne to Castle Bromwich and Hawkesley etc to Perry Common. Other than linking the Broad St / Westside commercial area with the east of the city I can't see why there would be great demand for linking the 23/24 and Chelmsley corridors. Difficult to see how further bus priority measures could be implemented on the Harborne side and whilst reliability improved after the recent upgrades, those routes will still suffer heavy congestion once life returns to normal.

I completely agree and I'm starting to get confused as to what they're trying to achieve out of these. If you take something like the 45/47 and 16, you're effectively merging a route that was already within easy connecting distance, you only need to walk 50m at the markets to change. But if you take something like the 35/7 (to me it looks like the 7 not the 65), you're creating 'new' connections i.e. linking the markets with Snow Hill and vice versa, which makes more sense to me than merging routes which are easily accesible from each other anyway having said that, not sure who from Moseley or Kings Heath would need Aston or Perry Common, maybe a merger with the 33 would make more sense to link the One Stop centre.

It's not always about providing an 'end-to-end' link, but serving the 'bits in between'.

I doubt there would be many people who would travel all the way from Dudley to Druids Heath (apart from bus enthusiasts of course!), but then again there may be people in Moseley or Kings Heath who have appointments at City Hospital to attend who would benefit from this.

Equally there may not be many people in Sutton Coldfield interested in travelling to Frankley or Longbridge, but Birmingham University students living in Castle Vale or Perry Barr would benefit from this.

As Tony has stated above, passenger data is being taken into consideration to 'learn' more about which services passengers are changing onto to/from the city centre, because there may be some factors that we wouldn't otherwise assume, people travelling to places of work for example.

The shopping argument is flawed though, I doubt many shoppers from Kings Heath would bus it all the way to Perry Barr, not while many of the same shops are available either locally or somewhere closer like Selly Oak.

[Justin Tyme]

It's not always about providing an 'end-to-end' link, but serving the 'bits in between'.

I doubt there would be many people who would travel all the way from Dudley to Druids Heath (apart from bus enthusiasts of course!), but then again there may be people in Moseley or Kings Heath who have appointments at City Hospital to attend who would benefit from this.

Absolutely!

It's the same with the area's cross-city rail services.  Stourbridge Junction to Dorridge or Whitlocks End seems to be more a marriage of convenience than of meeting demand, but there is a bit of cross-city usage.

As an enthusiast I am really looking forward to this scheme, and I am pleased that Local Authorities are putting their money where their mouths are on serious bus priorities.  Will it work? Will there be much cross-city usage?  It's easy to be sceptical but I see NXWM's willingness as a vote of confidence in the scheme.  I look forward to seeing how it works out in practice.

[mikestone]

Sounds to me as someone's pet scheme which will be implemented come what may - look at the farce with connecting the Coventry corridor rail services across Birmingham, which thirty seconds' perusal of timekeeping statistics would have shown wasn't going to work.

[winston]

Stourbridge- Coventry - that will be like a 2.5 hour trip

The 900 used to run Hasbury to Coventry as a Timesaver from deregulation in 1986, before being split at B'ham to form 900 B'ham to Coventry & 19 Hasbury to B'ham.

Hasbury to Coventry only took circa 90 mins, did it end to end a number of times

[Steve3229vp]

The 900 used to run Hasbury to Coventry as a Timesaver from deregulation in 1986, before being split at B'ham to form 900 B'ham to Coventry & 19 Hasbury to B'ham.

Hasbury to Coventry only took circa 90 mins, did it end to end a number of times

Don't forget that the 900 started in 1985 in the WMPTE era running from Halesowen to Coventry

[BBS]

Strange how other places such as Small heath have platinum routes there and Acocks Green doesn't.

[2206]

Strange how other places such as Small heath have platinum routes there and Acocks Green doesn't.

No its not strange at all, not every single corridor can have platinum buses.

Main routes to Acocks Green I think are the 11 which has the crimson 61XX MMC.
And the 4/4A which has 22XX E200 MMC, plus there probably aren't really many suitable routes where the E200 MMC single deckers could be displaced to as well if that got platinum buses.

[winston]

Don't forget that the 900 started in 1985 in the WMPTE era running from Halesowen to Coventry

I didn't, but it didn't run through to Hasbury until Oct 1986.

[Tony]

Strange how other places such as Small heath have platinum routes there and Acocks Green doesn't.

Small Heath doesn't have any platinum routes either

[Steve3229vp]

Small Heath doesn't have any platinum routes either

I was about to make the same comment

[Steve3229vp]

Strange how other places such as Small heath have platinum routes there and Acocks Green doesn't.

I don't know of any Platinum routes in Small Heath

[Trident 4194]

The 900 used to run Hasbury to Coventry as a Timesaver from deregulation in 1986, before being split at B'ham to form 900 B'ham to Coventry & 19 Hasbury to B'ham.

Hasbury to Coventry only took circa 90 mins, did it end to end a number of times

How did it do that in 90 mins?

[Mike K]

It's not always about providing an 'end-to-end' link, but serving the 'bits in between'.

I doubt there would be many people who would travel all the way from Dudley to Druids Heath (apart from bus enthusiasts of course!), but then again there may be people in Moseley or Kings Heath who have appointments at City Hospital to attend who would benefit from this.

Equally there may not be many people in Sutton Coldfield interested in travelling to Frankley or Longbridge, but Birmingham University students living in Castle Vale or Perry Barr would benefit from this.

As Tony has stated above, passenger data is being taken into consideration to 'learn' more about which services passengers are changing onto to/from the city centre, because there may be some factors that we wouldn't otherwise assume, people travelling to places of work for example.

The shopping argument is flawed though, I doubt many shoppers from Kings Heath would bus it all the way to Perry Barr, not while many of the same shops are available either locally or somewhere closer like Selly Oak.

Not disagreeing with any of that, I said that the principle seems sensible and I appreciate that there will be limited demand for travel from Quinton Road West to Chelmsley Wood. Linking major educational facilities, hospitals etc makes sense. Just a few on there that seemed strange to me, but who am I to question empirical data?

[ellspurs]

Not disagreeing with any of that, I said that the principle seems sensible and I appreciate that there will be limited demand for travel from Quinton Road West to Chelmsley Wood. Linking major educational facilities, hospitals etc makes sense. Just a few on there that seemed strange to me, but who am I to question empirical data?

Funnily enough, for a time when I was younger, I used to go from effectively Chelmsley Wood (Smith's Wood) to Four Dwellings School, in Quinton every week.

That was way back when it was the 103 that was doing the journey down there.

[Stu]

Strange how other places such as Small heath have platinum routes there and Acocks Green doesn't.

No its not strange at all, not every single corridor can have platinum buses.

Main routes to Acocks Green I think are the 11 which has the crimson 61XX MMC.
And the 4/4A which has 22XX E200 MMC, plus there probably aren't really many suitable routes where the E200 MMC single deckers could be displaced to as well if that got platinum buses.

Please keep this on-topic, folks.